The US Government is Wiretapping WAY More Americans Than it Wants to Admit
By Carey Wedler
ActivistPost.com
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Before Edward Snowden released his notorious NSA leaks, national intelligence officials swore they were not spying on millions of innocent people. As they lied through their teeth, ongoing revelations embarrassingly exposed their dishonesty. Now, yet another deception has come to light, revealing that the government has once again lied about the extent of its invasive policies.
According to a 2014 year-end report by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO), “a total of 3,554 wiretaps were reported as authorized in 2014, with 1,279 authorized by federal judges and 2,275 authorized by state judges.” While this official number is already high, Albert Gidari, one of the country’s top privacy attorneys, noticed a discrepancy between the AO’s numbers and those detailed by private companies.
Since the controversy surrounding NSA surveillance began, private companies that cooperate with the government have taken steps to regain the trust of their users. In addition to offering encrypted communications (at the dramatic behest of authorities), companies now issue “transparency reports” to show how many requests for information the government makes.
Gidari explained that
AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint published data for 2014 earlier this year and T-Mobile published its first transparency report on the same day the AO released the Wiretap Report. In aggregate, the four companies state that they implemented 10,712 wiretaps, a threefold difference over the total number reported by the AO.
The Rest…HERE
